Multidisciplinary programs include laboratory scientists, clinical investigators, providers of patient care, epidemiologists, and sociobehavioral scientists. Collaboration across disciplines ensures that insights gained in the lab can move quickly and effectively to cancer patients' bedsides and to cancer prevention and control programs.

Many of the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center's research programs are organized around organ or disease sites:

Cancers also have common causes and underlying similarities, such as defects in cell cycle control, involvement of immunologic mechanisms, and global changes in gene copy number and chromosome arrangement. Other UCSF programs address this challenge through cross-cutting work that could eventually lead to broader-based therapies and prevention strategies for a number of cancers.

Our Cancer Risk Program also crosses many disease areas by identifying families and individuals at high risk for colorectal, breast, ovarian, and prostate cancer.